Insights | How to get a commercial building insurance quote
Retail? Manufacturing? Wholesale? Regardless of the specific industry in which you operate, there is a multitude of risks you need to manage when you run a commercial business. Just like you take time to understand your competition and marketplace when it comes to insuring the physical building in which you operate your business, it is important to keep current. This article is all about what you need to know when you are looking to get a commercial building insurance quote in Canada.
Details count. Insurers take a 360-degree view of your commercial building.
First and foremost, when an insurance company assesses your commercial building, they look at what might happen to your property. Some of the things that can happen to a commercial building are more controllable than others. An insurance company will want to take a holistic view of your commercial building in order to determine the type, kind, and quantity of coverage that will best suit your property.
Related Matters: Financial Post “Canada’s commercial property market is set for another blockbuster year”
Insurance companies also look at trends in the local and national commercial property market. These trends impact the use of commercial office spaces, commercial-industrial property, and commercial retail locations.
A recent Financial Post article finds that “office space under construction nearly doubled in 2018 to more than 22 million square feet (2 million square metres), mainly in Toronto and Vancouver. The new supply is expected to push up the vacancy rate to 11.3 percent this year. Limited space and rising rents in downtown markets across the country could push tenants out to the suburbs.”1
Determining the specific exposures your building faces as well as what risk management actions can help to mitigate these risks are all part of the process. To build out a quote for commercial building insurance, the insurance company takes a 360-degree view of your property.
Commercial building insurance questions to anticipate
Some of the things that are part and parcel of a quote for commercial building insurance may not be on your radar. When you are getting a commercial building insurance quote here are some questions to think about.
- Coverage period – When would you like the coverage to take effect for your commercial building?
- Stock coverage – How much stock do you store onsite in your commercial building? What is the value of the coverage you would like to insure your stock for?
- Equipment coverage – The equipment that is used in your commercial building also needs insurance. How much coverage would you like to insure your equipment for? What is the value of your business equipment in your commercial building? What is the value of improvements that your tenant (if applicable) has made to the commercial building you are looking to insure?
All of the above factors and more are taken into account when your commercial building insurance quote is created.
Postal codes + commercial building insurance = what to know when getting a quote
If you are wondering what insurance companies consider when they build a quote for a commercial property, the Insurance Bureau of Canada provides a few helpful insights.
Specifically, IBC notes that: “You can insure a broad variety of business property, including:
- Equipment
- Inventory and supplies
- Office furniture and fixtures
- Computers and electronics
- The personal property of employees while on-site
- Customer property at your business site
- Lighting systems
- Windows
- Outdoor signs
- Fencing and landscaping
- Tools and equipment in transit or used off-site for business purposes.”2
Step by step | We can get your commercial building insurance quote aligned.
As you seek out the best options for your commercial building insurance, you may have some questions. At ALIGNED Insurance, we pride ourselves on delivering a different kind of insurance experience to our business clients across Canada. Part of that experience involves the work we do to help you better understand the options out there in the insurance marketplace.
Here and through our social media channels, we share insights about coverages, trends, risks, the commercial insurance marketplace across Canada, and more. People read our online insurance information library and work directly with ALIGNED brokers to better understand current and emerging commercial coverage options.
Related Matters: Five star Google reviews: What people are saying about ALIGNED Insurance brokers online
The first step in getting a commercial building insurance quote to work with a team that is absolutely dedicated to business insurance. We are that team. We invite you to work with one of our Canadian insurance brokers to get your commercial building insurance quote aligned today.
If you’d like to get in touch right away to talk about your commercial building insurance needs, please call us at 1-866-287-0448 or email quotes@alignedinsurance.com
Source(s): 1 Financial Post “Canada’s commercial property market is set for another blockbuster year”; 2 IBC.ca “Commercial Property Insurance”
